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Recently, I had a client share her struggle with shame and guilt around gaining weight in the Losing Your First 10 Pounds course group. Because I know there’s so many women who struggle with this very thing, I wanted to share my response and advice to her. Here’s what she wrote:

I’m having a really rough day. I have been feeling really sick for a few days so I went to the doctor to get antibiotics… I’ve gained 20 pounds. They checked on 2 scales… twice. I hadn’t been feeling great about my body already but I didn’t think I’d gained that much. I feel broken and embarrassed. Like have people been noticing and not telling me? How have I not noticed? I feel like I can’t even be around my boyfriend I am so ashamed.

My response:

Thanks so much for sharing with the group. I know so many women relate with putting weight on, especially when they are stressed like you are. This often creates shame and guilt, which just further perpetuates this problem. Losing Your First 10 Pounds is starting at the perfect time for you..I promise, if you whole-heartedly do the work, you will get results!

I know I faced a ton of shame and guilt around gaining weight after I began energy healing and really started fully embracing the spiritual aspect of my work. I felt like a total failure and fraud and was embarrassed to be seen at times. Those feelings were hard to deal with, but getting vulnerable and sharing with those closest to me really helped me feel better about it. Both times I’ve lost weight, these people helped by showing me unconditional love before I felt like I could create it for myself. If they didn’t show me that unconditional love, I realized that I didn’t want people in my life that didn’t love me for ME/only loved me when I looked a certain way. I became my own authority and consciously decided to let people like that go (and there were definitely some that I did, but there were far more that didn’t).

Looking back on it, it taught me so many important lessons. Some of them include: how to take care of my body (even when “taking care” of it doesn’t equal weight loss-i.e. go to yoga, eat healthfully, etc.), how to release stress (because that was a huge part of why I gained weight), how to set healthy boundaries, how to get grounded, how weight is so much more than calories in vs. calories out, how my body is constantly communicating with me, etc. Not to mention..completely shifted how I approach weight loss and Vitality. I’d go through everything I went through a thousand more times if I could help even one person more effectively.

When you are ready (you’ll feel it in your energy), you can ask yourself questions like, “what is my soul trying to tell me by putting on this weight?”, “what is my body trying to tell me by putting on this weight?”, “who do I have to become to let go of this weight?”, “what is this weight trying to teach me on a soul level?”. When we can see what’s happening from a higher perspective and a certainty that once we learn the lesson that caused the weight to manifest in the first place, it’ll release…we can move through the lessons much more quickly. It’s here to teach you something and the sooner you learn what it’s here for…the sooner you can let it go. I hope this helps!

Now over to you…have you put weight on after losing it? How did it make you feel? How did you lose it? I’d love to hear in the comments below :)